I'm not a big fan of software raid because I just like the comfort level of a dedicated controller but for an HTPC at home it is certainly viable. Most newer motherboards have at least 4 SATA interfaces on board and I've seen up to 8. 4 x 320GB drives would give you nearly a TB of storage, which is really unbelievable to even think about. I think my Dad paid an extra $1500 to put a 5MB HDD in his original PC clone.

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Yes, my main goal is to us it for Data/Files. Basically Songs, Movies, etc... I would assume I would use the SATA for the Raid 5 array. One problem with software OS is that the OS has to be installed before you can set up the array, so you can't stipe your OS also. Not a biggy, I would assume I'll use a somewhat smaller drive using the IDE controller to put XP Pro and my DVD software Theatertek and a few other applications.

Not sure when this will get completed as I have to fork out about 4 grand to carpet part of our basement. Besides my wife does not understand the concept of a HTPC anyway..

There is actually a big advantage to having your OS on a different disk. A few, really. Your data drive won't be affected by all the disk activity caused by normal OS functions such as swapfile seeks and the like. Also if the OS needs to be rebuilt it will be much easier as far as connecting to the array. The disks in the array will have information about the array config on them, so the OS can see this and give you the option to reactivate the array. One problem though now that I think of it: I'm not sure XP can do raid 5, I think only 0 and 1. Matter of fact I'm certain this is true.

_________________________
"That's some catch, that Catch-22." "It's the best there is."
M22ti
VP150
EP350
QS8
M3Ti

I would highly recommend using a controller card or using a built in RAID controller on the motherboard. Trust me, you don't want Windows managing more important things than it needs to. I forsee huge headaches in the future if Windows ever gets corrupted. And being quite the techy myself, I've seen too many bad things happen with windows like that. Do yourself a favor and get a controller card, have that manage it, and have Windows think it's just operating on a single hard drive.

It's going to be a nightmarish experience if Windows does go bad, and all/any of your data is innacessable. With a hardware controller, you don't have to worry about that.

I'm not entirely sure if the system will recognize the drives as a RAID5 again if you need to reinstall. That's a lot of data there.

If you need any help building your PC...I've built around 1000 for customers. So, I might be of a little help. If I sounded rude at all I'm sorry, I'm just trying to help.

Edit: Also, I want you to realize that unless you want your HTPC doing the work of the receiver, your DVD playback software does not need any integrated decoders whatsoever. You specify the DVD software to use SPDIF out, and the receiver does the work with the digital signal. In my experience, PowerDVD is the best. Windows Media Player does a fine job as well, it has an option to use SPDIF out.

thanks Dan, I'm planning on using Theatertek DVD. Also I will be using SPDIF out to my Denon, not sure if I'll use the on-board motherboard or buy a seperate card. Have you read the article from Toms Hardware about XP Raid 5, pretty interesting when they pulled one of the SATA connections, and even used a different mother board with differant southbridge chipset.